CHAPTER VII

DRAMATIC POWER IN SPEAKING

The dramatic element in speaking is by no means the exclusive property of the stage. It has its appropriate and legitimate place in platform and pulpit delivery. The extent to which it should be employed depends upon the subject and the occasion. When properly used it is a source of great power and effectiveness.

This is not a recommendation, however, of paroxysms of feeling, wild gesticulation, tearing and combing of the hair with the fingers, violent pacing up and down the platform, and other manifestations of old-style oratory, happily now obsolete, but rather to suggest a power which, when properly used, will give life, variety, intensity, and color to the spoken message.

In reciting dramatic scenes the voice should be varied so as to faithfully impersonate each character distinctly and naturally. This affords the best kind of practise for the speaking voice.

The study of dramatic literature gives life and vividness to a speaker's style, develops his imagination, and broadens his conception of humanity. It teaches him to speak from the heart to the heart. It educates his emotions for in

stant use.

The effect of strong dramatic utterance is illustrated in the story of Whitefield addressing his audience, of whom some were sailors, when he said:

"Well, my boys, we have a clear sky, and are making fine headway over a smooth sea before a light breeze, and we shall soon lose sight of land. But what means this sudden lowering of the heavens, and that dark cloud arising from beneath the western horizon? Hark! Don't you hear distant thunder? Don't you see those flashes of lightning? This is a storm gathering! Every man to his duty! How the waves rise and dash against the ship! The air is dark! -the tempest rages!-our masts are gone-the ship is on her beam-ends! What next?" This appeal instantly brought the sailors to their feet, with a shout: "The longboat!-take to the long-boat."

This study will also give vigor and action to the speaker. The orator is not a statue, but "an animal galvanic battery on two legs," as Nathan Sheppard has it. The body, the hand, the face, the eye, the mouth, all should respond to the speaker's inner thought and feeling. It should be said of him as of Wendell Phillips:

Pure and eloquent blood

Spoke in his cheek, and so distinctly wrought
That one might almost say his body thought.

The public speaker should be a man of great earnestness and of strong healthy passions. These qualities can best be cultivated by the daily practising aloud of dramatic Care must be taken not to exaggerate objective effects. Gesture, facial expression, and bodily action must be subordinated to the thought.

scenes.

It is said of the elder Salvini that in studying the part of Othello, he instructed his attendants to tie him securely to a chair, in order that he might develop his subjective

expression as much as possible. When at last he appeared on the stage the critics marveled at his impersonation of a part that had almost invariably been overdone in style and action.

"All true action in the pulpit," says Doctor Kennard, "must first proceed from the soul. In other words, it has a psychic base and spring. If the man's soul is in a healthy and vigorous state, inspired by his theme, his thought will swim to the surface and reflect itself in his physical features and organs. By a subtle psychological law the whole nervous and muscular system responds to the sympathetic impulses of the emotions and will; feeling and purpose mysteriously and spontaneously press at every gate of the eyes, the lips, the cheeks, the hands, the feet, for expression. The preacher's heart, swelling with inspired energetic conviction and emotion, lifts itself up like a great tidal wave, overflows its banks and pours itself forth in expressions of the features, glances of the eyes, quivering of the mouth, tones of the voice and movements of the limbs, so that the physical structure becomes simply the complex and delicate organ of expression for the brain, and heart, and will."

The emotions of the speaker must first be awakened, then judiciously trained to respond instantly to his demands. They must first be intelligently controlled that they may be safely and unconsciously liberated at the moment of use in public speaking. Shakespearian numbers are particularly recommended because of their scope and fidelity.

The following scenes will give material for practise of this kind. Further selections will be found in the latter part of the book.

1 Psychic Power in Preaching, J. Spencer Kennard, D.D

KING HENRY VIII

ACT III, SCENE 2-WOLSEY AFTER HIS FALL

SCENE: An antechamber in Henry VIII's palace.

Wol. So, farewell to the little good you bear me.
Farewell! a long farewell, to all my greatness!
This is the state of man; to-day he puts forth
The tender leaves of hope; to-morrow blossoms,
And bears his blushing honors thick upon him;
The third day comes a frost, a killing frost,
And, when he thinks, good easy man, full surely
His greatness is a-ripening, nips his root,
And then he falls, as I do. I have ventur'd,
Like little wanton boys' that swim on bladders,
This many summers in a sea of glory,
But far beyond my depth; my high-blown pride
At length broke under me, and now has left me
Weary and old with service, to the mercy
Of a rude stream, that must forever hide me.
Vain pomp and glory of this world, I hate ye;
I feel my heart new-opened. Oh, how wretched
Is that poor man that hangs on princes' favors!
There is, betwixt that smile we would aspire to,
That sweet aspect of princes, and their ruin,
More pangs and fears than wars or women have;
And when he falls, he falls like Lucifer,

At my misfortunes? can thy spirit wonder

A great man should decline? Nay, an you weep,
I am fall'n indeed.

Crom.

How does your grace?

0 Cr

Why, well;

The king

Wol.

I know myself now; and I feel within me

Never so truly happy, my good Cromwell.

In that of

gild a

A peace above all earthly dignities,

A still and quiet conscience. The king has cur'd me,
I humbly thank his grace; and from these shoulders,
These ruin'd pillars, out of pity, taken

A load would sink a navy-too much honor;

Oh, 'tis a burden, Cromwell, 'tis a burden

Too heavy for a man that hopes for heaven!

Crom. I am glad your grace has made that right use of it.
Wol. I hope I have; I am able now, methinks,

(Out of a fortitude of soul I feel,)

To endure more miseries and greater far
Than my weak-hearted enemies dare offer.
What news abroad?

Crom.

The heaviest and the worst

God bless him!

Is your displeasure with the king.

Wol.

Crom. The next is, that Sir Thomas More is chosen Lord Chancellor in your place.

Wol.

That's somewhat sudden;

But he's a learned man. May he continue
Long in his highness' favor, and do justice.
For truth's sake and his conscience; that his bones,
When he has run his course and sleeps in blessings,

May have a tomb of orphans' tears wept on 'em!
What more?

Crom.

That Cranmer is return'd with welcome,

Last, that the Lady Anne,

Install'd Lord Archbishop of Canterbury.

Wol. That's news indeed.

Crom.

Whom the king hath in secrecy long married,
This day was view'd in open as his queen,
Going to chapel; and the voice is now

Only about her coronation.